Not Visible

SB 827 does not benefit the homeless. Rather it is based on the trickle-down theory that has been disproven in economics and now in housing. It is a myth that building more housing brings down the rental rates, as residential development in San Francisco has proven definitively in the past ten years. Instead, the new market-rate units have instigated a rise in housing rates across the city. 

Those of us truly concerned about climate change and justice for workers want Berkeley families, students, and workers to be able to live where they work or go to school so they don’t have to commute to Berkeley. Unless limited to low and moderate income tenants, as SB 827 does not do, to add more housing near BART and virtually all transit routes turns Berkeley into a bedroom community of apartments and condos for those rich enough to afford market-rate rents. Studies have now shown that transit-oriented development inflates real estate values. It thus drives out low-income residents and invites in affluent residents actually more likely to own and use cars than public transit. Even in theory, transit-oriented housing facilitates working in other communities than that in which one lives, thus spending most of one's waking hours not where you live but where you take transit to work. It's more cost- and energy-efficient and much less stressful to live and work in the same place. 

Instead of upzoning—increasing allowable building heights and density—and overriding local planning, we need a moratorium on for-profit development and a renewed commitment and funding for non-profit, inclusionary residential buildings. We need to provide housing for families and low-income residents in Berkeley, not for the wealthy and commuters who work in Silicon Valley. And if we shade all our urban garden spaces with tall buildings, we become the more dependent upon industrial agriculture and its very large carbon footprint and poisoning of our soil, air, and water. To mock "zucchini gardens” is a bit short-sighted. If more of us could grow some of our own food, we’d be both healthier and happier. What a concept!